Extreme drought conditions and urgent municipal water needs converged at a state wildlife area in Huerfano County, prompting Colorado Parks and Wildlife to authorize an emergency public fish salvage at Daigre Reservoir — a body of water that had been tapped to keep Walsenburg and La Veta supplied.
Before Daigre became the focus, another reservoir within the same Wahatoya State Wildlife Area had already been drawn down to address the same municipal shortage, exhausting that source before managers turned to Daigre. CPW determined that without intervention, the reservoir stood to lose its full complement of fish — a population that includes tiger muskie, bass, trout, and bluegill.
"The fish belong to the public, and we want to provide anglers the opportunity to harvest as many fish as possible before declining water levels potentially cause us to lose the fishery," CPW Aquatic Biologist Carrie Tucker said in a news release. To make the best use of the resource before it was lost, CPW authorized the public salvage and said it would also conduct its own removal operations and move fish to other public waters wherever doing so was feasible. Recovered fish are expected to be stocked at Martin Reservoir and Horseshoe Lake within Lathrop State Park.
For the duration of the salvage, standard size, bag, and possession limits at Daigre have been suspended for valid Colorado fishing license holders, and rules limiting anglers to artificial flies, lures, and certain baits have been relaxed — though live fish remain prohibited as bait in waters east of the Continental Divide above 7,000 feet.
The Arkansas River to the north is contending with its own drought-driven stress. CPW placed a voluntary closure in effect daily from noon to midnight along the Arkansas River from Pueblo Boulevard east to its confluence with Fountain Creek. Warmer water holds less dissolved oxygen, and when that condition is combined with reduced streamflows, trout struggle to recover after being caught and released. Anglers are encouraged to fish in the early morning hours when water remains cooler, and CPW has indicated it could convert the voluntary closure to a mandatory one if conditions deteriorate further.
To ease pressure on the Upper Arkansas River during the drought year, the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District approved a plan to dedicate up to 2,500 acre-feet — roughly 814.6 million gallons — of Fryingpan-Arkansas Project water to the river. The plan calls for releases out of Twin Lakes, terminating at Pueblo Reservoir, with additional streamflow expected between August and November; releases are slated to begin around Aug. 7 and will be managed through the late-summer and fall period when heat and low flows place the heaviest burden on the river. CPW said the supplemental water is intended to ease stress on the brown and rainbow trout populations that reproduce naturally in the Arkansas, one of the state's most popular angling destinations.
CPW said it will issue a further announcement once the Daigre salvage wraps up or water conditions at the reservoir improve.